


Parhelion

by lafiametta



Category: The Terror (TV 2018)
Genre: Because this is The Terror after all, Drabble Collection, F/M, Gen, M/M, Multiple Pov, Prompt Fill, We're all gluttons for punishment here, canon-compliant deaths
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-06-15
Updated: 2018-12-04
Packaged: 2019-05-23 19:29:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 34
Words: 5,733
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14940449
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lafiametta/pseuds/lafiametta
Summary: A collection of five-sentence-long drabbles based on character + word prompts from Tumblr.





	1. Blanky + "Protocol"

Blanky stood and stared over the edge of the port side, ignoring the small seizures of pain that spread through his chest every time he took a breath of frozen air: ice, ice, and more ice, as far as the eye could see, an unrelenting span of emptiness. 

As  _Terror_ ’s ice master, he understood it like no other – its shapes and colors, its character and disposition, its likes and dislikes – and over the years his mind had transformed into a vast encyclopedia of calculations, steps, and protocols, all aimed at finding a way to prevail over the barriers that Nature had put in front of him. 

He almost laughed for pity, for now he could finally see that  _this_  ice – that stretched out mercilessly towards King William Land and the Passage beyond – would know no master. It would not be overcome by protocol or calculation, nor by the best the British navy had to offer.

It would be the death of them all. 


	2. Little + "Slow"

Time passes in an unending circle for the few remaining men of the Franklin Expedition. 

When it was clear that they could go no further, Lieutenant Little had allowed them to stop and make what each man privately knew to be their final camp - and there they remained, bodies and minds slowly being lost to the languor of the Arctic summer’s perpetual daylight. 

It is strange, Little thinks, not to be about some activity or another, for the Navy had no room for shirkers, and it had never been his habit to be idle.

As he sits in his tent, he can hear his mother’s voice calling to him from the window of their house in Hertfordshire -  _“Slow, Edward, wait for your brothers!”_ \- but he is seven and they are barely four and three, and besides there is an orchard full of apples ripening in the sun, and fields to be explored, and a whole world beyond desperately calling out for him to find it. 

He has time now; here he will wait for them. 


	3. Goodsir + "Snuggle"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I felt the need to go with an AU setting here – sorry, Terror purists!

“I think you may actually like my dog more than you like me,” Silna says as she looks down at Harry from the foot of the bed, a steaming mug of coffee in her hand and the corner of her mouth ticking upwards in partially-concealed amusement. 

Harry has little excuse for himself, as he is currently being blanketed by the dog in question, a half-Samoyed, half-Great Dane terror that was large enough to take up much of her bed. The moment she had gotten up to start the coffeemaker, Tuunbaq had seized the opportunity and jumped in right beside him, and Harry had quickly realized how futile it would be to resist. 

“He  _is_  a quality snuggler,” Harry says, grinning even as his body remains immobilized by a 180-pound ball of white fluff. “But I think it’ll take more than that for me to like anything as much as I like you.”


	4. Goodsir + "Burst"

Harry is entrenched in the warm nook of his study, making the final corrections to the proofs of  _Anatomical and Pathological Observations_ , when his brother deposits a thick cream envelope onto the desk, Harry’s name written in rounded copperplate just below the prominent seal of the Admiralty. 

“Morning post just arrived,” John says, his eyes warm with pride.

As he opens it, Harry can barely breathe for excitement, his heart fit to burst within his chest – for here it is, his commission, an appointment to serve as the assistant surgeon on board the HMS  _Erebus_ , the flagship of the expedition sent to chart the Northwest Passage, commanded by Sir John Franklin himself. 

The expedition is set to depart from Greenhithe in mid-May, and already Harry is thinking of all the work that must be done before he leaves Edinburgh: the necessary observational equipment and tools to be purchased and packed, his passage to London booked, and of course he must at once begin a proper inquiry into all the relevant Arctic memoirs and works on the natural history of the region.

And after he returns to England, laden with notes and crates of specimens, perhaps he will compose his own authoritative study, one that would undoubtedly secure his reputation as one of the new scientific lights of the age. 


	5. Tozer + "Obedience"

In his father’s house, Solomon Tozer had first learned the meaning of obedience, the lesson periodically reinforced with a half dozen or so stripes while he braced himself against the wooden table, doing his best to swallow his childish cries.

There were so many to whom he owed his obedience – to his father and his mother, to God and to the doctrines of the Church, to the Queen and her government in Westminster, to his commanding officers – and he undertook it without protest, as an article of faith. He was an Englishman and a marine: duty above all.

So how was it possible that he was finding himself swayed by talk of mutiny, especially coming from the likes of a man like Cornelius Hickey, who under any other circumstances he would have done his utmost to avoid?

How was it possible that it had all gone so wrong?


	6. Crozier + "Faith"

Once he was sure James was gone, Francis reached out to gently close his friend’s eyes and cross his lifeless arms over his chest; then he pressed his own face into his palms and wept silently for a time, his body wracked by periodic shudders of grief.

 _“God wants you to live,”_ James had told him, but then James was still a man of faith, however frayed and tattered it might have turned since they left home.

Francis had not yet lost his faith, as any reasonable man might, having been witness to the litany of horrors that had plagued them on this voyage. But rather than turn atheist, he had come to an altogether more disturbing conclusion: the God they worshipped was not one of mercy. 

 _No, James,_  he thought, _Was it not plainly clear that God was merely toying with them, as a cat might with a mouse, that He has no intention whatsoever of letting them live?_


	7. Gore + "Fear"

Lieutenant Graham Gore holds his gun aloft, tightly surveying the scene: even in the low light, he can see the fear etched upon the men’s faces, their rigid, white-eyed stares as they look back at him and then at each other, as if one among their company might have some explanation as to what was happening. 

Gore keeps his breathing steady, knowing that panic – although a natural response to the unfamiliar – too often resulted in tragedy. Sir John had entrusted him with the responsibility over the lives of these men, and he has no intention of betraying that trust by allowing any of them to come to harm.

He wonders what is keeping Goodsir, for once the doctor returns with fresh intelligence – in particular regarding the mystery of that female voice – he will have a better idea of how to proceed, and then he might begin to return some sense of calm and order to the camp, perhaps instruct the men to create a perimeter from which they can keep watch for any sign of the bear. 

With a crack, lightning illuminates the crest of ice beyond, and from just behind him, he can hear the most peculiar sound of snow being rapidly trod underfoot.


	8. Jopson + "Glasses"

Each night, after the captain has retired to bed, Thomas sweeps through to tidy up the great cabin. He moves methodically, in a familiar pattern, filling the lanterns with oil and cleaning out the ashes from the stove, making sure to store away any charts left on the table, and replenishing the officers’ supply of spirits on the sideboard. 

Often one of the glasses will be left on the table, empty but with the warm scent of whiskey still clinging to its sides. He will clean it and put it back with its brothers, and likewise refill the contents of the crystal decanter, which tends to be several fingers’ width lower than it had been when the junior officers departed following the conclusion of the evening meal. 

Before he leaves for his own bunk, he turns and gives it all a quick once-over, just to be sure that everything is in its place, that everything appears exactly as it ought to. 


	9. Stanley + "Kitchen"

He comes to the decision suddenly, as if it had been there all along, simply waiting for him to find it. 

And when he comes face to face with his Creator, Dr. Stanley is certain it shall be understood as an act of mercy, for how could it not be, how could anyone not see that he was saving them – all of them – from a fate far worse than what he had in store? The men cannot make a trek for hundreds of miles across barren land – so many of them are ill, and if Mr. Goodsir is correct, will grow worse still – and should they try, they will weaken and starve and die before they reach anything resembling civilization. 

Better to be done with it now and spare them what’s to come.  

He finds his mind is calm as he thoroughly douses the tents with an accelerant of spirits, for he is thinking of how good it will be to see her again, to hear her croon as she rocks Dolly in her arms, to watch her smile with unalloyed delight at whatever sweet confection cook has brought her from the kitchen. 


	10. Jopson + "Smile"

The captain is telling him about Colin Foley’s cow, a story he’s heard at least twice already, or at least he thinks he has – his memory is not as keen as it once was – but still, he loves it, loves imagining the captain as a boy roaming across the green meadows of County Down and making trouble everywhere he went. 

It is clear now that he is dying, and the captain must think so too, for why else would he be here at his bedside, comforting him, bathing him as a mother would a child? Thomas feels the realization settle upon him, weak tears suddenly dropping from the corners of his eyes, but there is the captain to dry them off, to help him see that he will not be alone. 

It hurts to smile, for his lips are dry and cracked and his teeth ache like burning stones within his jaw, but he cannot help it.

It is the happiest he’s ever been. 


	11. Little + "Close"

The crowds are packed tight along the pier at Greenhithe, nearly twenty men deep, and Edward cannot help but be stirred by their excitement, all their cheering and whistling, all the young boys waving their caps to the two ships now beginning to churn their way into the brown murk of the Thames.

He keeps himself from smiling, though, following the example of the other lieutenants, their expressions firmly set as they stand along the deck in the sharpness of their dress uniforms. But still, he feels it, that shimmering sense of possibility that stretches out past the river and to the path of the sea beyond.

He felt it the night before too, at the Admiralty reception, in the glittering warmth of the rooms as he laughed with his fellow officers over glasses of claret, as he turned a waltz with the lavender-clad daughter of a baronet, his hand light along the curve of her waist.

Everything is there, arrayed so clearly in front of him, a future so bright and so close he can almost reach out and grasp it. 


	12. Goodsir + "Delicate"

The radiating pain along his arms has lessened into numbness, and Harry knows he will not have to wait much longer.

For the mystery is here: it is all around him, bright and blinding as a June day. The muscles of his face no longer obey his mind’s faint commands, but if they had, he might have smiled, for he understands now, he can see it all, the invisible cords that bind all creation, the shining gates of paradise edging themselves open towards the light. 

There is such beauty in its infinite complexity. 

He feels a great stirring hush, and everything stills, as if simply waiting for his acquiescence, and so Harry Goodsir lets go, at last allowing himself to be borne into the delicate and unfolding geometry of the universe.


	13. Le Vesconte + "Speech"

Captain Crozier did not offer a speech, or much else that would befit a senior officer in Her Majesty’s navy, even one being laid to rest so far away from the traditions and comforts of home. None of the others said anything either, but simply watched in silence as the commander was fully sewn stitch by stitch into his woolen shroud. 

They might have asked Henry to speak, for he was the one who had known the commander the longest, since their time in Nanking, sailed under him in Bahrain and along the coast of Africa, and gladly followed him here to this forsaken end of the earth. Commander Fitzjames was the very best of men, of that he was certain, and had Henry felt compelled to give voice to his long-held sentiments, he would have told them that there had been none more brave or handsome or honorable in all the world.

Yet he said nothing, feeling only the quiet stutter of his heart as the last stitch was pulled through. 


	14. Blanky + "Explosives"

Mr. Reid had at least the decency to look abashed as he inquired about the quantity of explosives that still remained in  _Terror_ ’s stores. “Sir John bade me ask,” he added, as if that was all the explanation that was necessary.

“Mr. Reid, you know as well as I that a whole ship’s worth of gunpowder would not be enough to dislodge us now,” Thomas replied, “not with it set so thick around the hull.”

He shook his head, knowing it was not the man in front of him who deserved his reproof, but their commanding officer, a pious fool who would rather trust in God than in the honest opinions of his fellow men.

 _Let us hope God is listening now, Sir John,_ he thought,  _for all our sakes_. 


	15. Goodsir + "Longing"

They sit side by side, Harry’s battered copy of Humboldt on the floor between them as he pages through, searching for the appropriate illustration. “Tree,” he offers once he finds it, even though the drawing in question is of a South American species that is as foreign to him as it would be to her. 

She gazes at the image for some time, her brow tightening with focused intent, and then turns to look at him, dark eyes gleaming in the lantern light. “ _Napattuk_ ,” she says, raising her chin with a tiny jut of satisfaction.

And all at once he is filled with an immense longing for home – not just the natural homesickness he has felt from time to time during this voyage, but a desire to be there among the endless green – and just for a moment he can imagine them there, strolling underneath a canopy of Scots pine, her arm impossibly linked in his, as they speak together in a language all their own. 


	16. Irving + "Tired"

He looks back towards the hills, thinking to wave up to Mr. Hickey and Mr. Farr so that they know that it is safe to join him here, but they are gone, swallowed up by the unending landscape. 

It is no matter; he will find them and bring them back, and God willing the Esquimaux man has enough provisions at hand that he might be able to assuage their hunger as well. 

John cannot help but see the hand of Providence in this encounter, for only God could have seen through to the true depths of his weariness, understood the quiet despair that for weeks had sat heavy on his heart. He sees now how wrong it was to doubt, for the Lord has seen fit to provide for him, however undeserving of it he may be. 

He turns and begins to race up the hill towards his companions, his body no longer tired, but light as air, as if he might sprout wings and fly to join them.


	17. Fitzjames + "Blood"

He often dreams about Chingkiang. 

The heat is stifling, squeezing his chest and stealing his breath, and he can barely see as he palms himself up the ladder, his sight obscured by the salty sting of sweat. The roar of men and guns goes on relentlessly, like the gears of some diabolical machine, and James watches in dumb incomprehension as the the marine just above him falls to the ground, half of his head shot away. He swipes the blood from his face, knowing that it is not his own, only to catch a glimpse of the stains blossoming along his sleeve and the side of his coat, the pain suddenly roaring to life amid his scream. 

When he wakes, he sometimes finds his hand pressed up against the scars; he pulls it away, half-expecting to see his fingers still dark with red. 


	18. Hartnell + "Reason"

The sky is a silver-needled gray the morning they leave Beechey, fair summer winds from the east promising them a smooth entry into the strait. 

Most of the men have already gone down to the ships – he can hear the shout of orders far up in the rigging – but Tom cannot go, not just yet. He kneels and presses his palm against the words carved on the limestone, his throat thick as he swallows back his unspoken farewell. He still has no idea what he will tell his mother when he returns home, for she will want a reason, some way to understand why her eldest son is gone and why they left him there in such a desolate, far-off corner of the earth. 

He will have none to give her. 


	19. Blanky + "Bones"

Near the end of April, Thomas packs his sea chest and hires a carter to take him from his rented rooms in Stepney down to where the ships are moored along the river at Greenhithe.

They are not the largest in Her Majesty’s navy, but perhaps the sturdiest, for the Admiralty has gone to great expense to refit them in preparation for the Arctic journey, installing diagonal support beams and covering their bows with inch-thick iron armor. He walks each deck in turn, careful of the men coming aboard with crates of dry goods and other provisions, and by the end of his inspection he is confident that the ships’ bones have been built strong enough to see them through the Passage.

Yet bones, like all things made of man, can still be broken, bent and snapped into pieces as easily as dry kindling. 

He of all people understands that it is merely a question of pressure and leverage and time. 


	20. Silna + "Regret"

Her skin prickles with the sensation she is being watched; she turns to see him there, standing near the light, the hair framing his face dark and russet-colored like the pelt of a southern fox.

Silna remembers the way he had looked at her then, his eyes full of cold laughter as he pointed his weapon and ordered the others to bind her wrists and pull her to her feet. He spoke loudly while they trudged along the ice, taunting her – not in her own words, of course, for he was not so clever as that, but she understood well enough.

He had been punished for it – the man called Aglooka had told her as much, before he went away – and while she never learned any more, she sometimes wondered if it had been harsh enough to make him regret what he had done.

She does not need to wonder any longer, for she can glimpse all the things left buried in his eyes, and regret is not there among them.


	21. Crozier + "Secret"

The walk back from the cairn was a quiet one, save for the rough clatter of stones under their feet, but Francis did not mind, for his thoughts still remained entangled in the magnitude of James’s confession. 

It was beyond improbable: the great James Fitzjames not even English, and a bastard to boot? He would never have guessed – not even in his most uncharitable mood – and he found himself recalling every minor boast, every tale of glory told in the officers’ mess, their meaning entirely transformed in the wake of such a secret.

Francis had often thought himself supremely burdened with all of his humiliations, displayed so publicly for all to see.

He had never considered how much worse it might be to have had to bear them entirely alone.


	22. Peglar + "Caring"

The bird – a gull, perhaps – circles low in the sky, as if beyond caring what direction it will take.

Henry watches it glide, feathers splayed wide to catch the current, and he wants nothing more than to follow, to leave the unbearable prison of his body and soar away to a place he cannot name. 

His chest rattles with an empty breath, and for a moment he feels himself begin to go, his mind spinning loose into the formless expanse above; but for a pair of hands cradling his head, the only thing still tethering him to the earth, he might well have. 

 _John_ , he whispers,  _John. Stay with me_. 


	23. Goodsir + "Warmth"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> That last prompt was kind of a lot tbh, so here I am retreating into the fluffiness of my modern AU... I hope no one minds!

Harry barely makes it past the front door before he finds himself under attack by a pair of gargantuan beasts: the first, of course, is Tuunbaq, whose front paws have quickly planted themselves up on his shoulders, but the second, a thick-pelted black Newfie, is one he’s never seen before.

“Who’s this?” he asks, as he attempts to remove his coat and scarf and make it to the safety of the couch without getting knocked onto the floor.

“That’s Neptune,” Silna answers from the kitchen, “and I’m watching him for my neighbor while he’s gone for two weeks to Antarctica.”

“Antarctica, hmmm?” he murmurs to the two decidedly-non-lap-dogs who have already jumped up and begun arranging their combined bulk across his lap. “And he didn’t want to take you both along for warmth?”


	24. Collins + "Safe"

After six bells, Henry pulls George Chambers aside to help him retrieve the heavy diving gear from where it is stored down on the orlop. He will need some assistance in putting it on and he is sure the boy could use the distraction, given the sudden and unexpected loss of his friend and what they all know is about to transpire behind the closed doors of the sick bay. 

Together they unpack the oversized canvas suit, waterproofed and thickened to protect him in the icy water, and then the corselet and all the weights, and finally the helmet, which Henry holds up to examine in the light. 

“Will it keep you safe from sea monsters, sir?” George asks, his voice low and credulous.

Henry scoffs, ready to chide the boy for his foolishness, for all rational men understand that no such things exist, but then he feels a chill sweep over him as he gazes at the helmet  _–_  its bulbous shape so strangely inhuman, the face plate protruding like some grotesque cyclopean eye  _–_  and suddenly he is no longer so certain. 


	25. Silna + "Curls"

All of their eyes are turned towards where the dead man lies crumpled on the ground – all but Silna’s, for the man she is looking at is very much alive, kneeling there just beside the blood.

Soon enough, most of them have drifted away, even as a few arrive to haul away the body, but still she stands noiselessly and watches him, for he looks so different, so small and alone, as if the light inside of him has somehow been snuffed out. It pains her heart in a way she does not entirely understand.

She follows him as he returns to his tent – through the walls she can hear the panic in his breath, punctuated by quiet sobs – and even though he looks surprised to see her come in, he says nothing as she pulls back the blanket and lowers herself down onto the fur.  _You are not alone_ , she wants to say, her hand reaching out to steady him as the rest of her body curls lightly around his.


	26. Ross + "Glory"

Their breakfast is a leisurely affair – and a somewhat quieter one now that Francis has gone – but they content themselves with pleasant conversation as James sets himself to inspecting this morning’s edition of  _The Times_.

“I was thinking I might call upon the Gordons today,” Ann says, as she cuts into a slice of cold ham.

“Very good, dear,” he replies, but his thoughts are more occupied on the item taking up the bulk of the front page, which recounts in exhaustive detail the departure of Sir John’s expedition the day before.  _“The almost-certain discovery of the Passage will only serve to enhance the glory of Her Majesty’s Empire and of the courageous men who undertake to seek it despite such unimaginable perils,”_  it proclaims, and for a moment he envies them, how happy they must be in the knowledge that their names will forever be remembered. He had made the right decision in refusing the Admiralty’s offer of command, of course, but that does not stop him from imagining himself there, gazing proudly from the deck of the flagship, the path to the Pacific at last in sight.


	27. Hickey + "Curiosity"

It was that head of hair that first aroused his curiosity – a cap of red-blond curls that any tart in Shoreditch would have envied – but it was not long before he found other things to admire: a sharp-cut profile, the pale span of a neck, a pair of long and shapely hands.

He had always had a weakness for a fine pair of hands.  

But if he was not fooling himself – and he was many things, admittedly, but he had never been a fool – it seemed as if the object of his attentions had taken notice of him as well. In all honesty, a liaison had not been foremost in his thoughts when he began this voyage, but he rapidly found himself becoming more and more drawn to the idea.

 _At the very least it could be a pleasurable diversion_ , he thought,  _a way to pass the time until they reached the warmth of the islands – and perhaps by that point he might be in need of a companion, someone at his side as he began his new and nameless life._


	28. Crozier + "Ghost"

With each step, the men grow weaker – Francis can hear it in their stumbling footfalls, in the wheezing gasps of their breath – all made worse by the terrible realization that he can do nothing to help them, only continue to urge them onward, mile after mile, until the hour comes when they can go no further.

It pains him to look at them now, once handsome faces reduced to skeletal shadows, hale bodies turned thin and sickly under the colorless summer sun.  

They still resemble men, but only just.

And as each day passes, leaving some too weak to haul and a few too weak to even walk, he wonders how much longer they can continue like this, how long before their desire to live – and their loyalty to him – are extinguished. 

He does not need to believe in ghosts to understand what it means to be haunted.


	29. Blanky + "Fury"

When he tells her he’s agreed to join the expedition, she refuses to speak to him for the rest of the day, and it is only very late that night, when all the rest of the house is long abed, that she relents and shifts over to curl herself around him, her cheek pressed tight against the top of his shoulder.

“You would risk all again, and for what?” she murmurs.

Esther has a long memory, longer than most, and no doubt she is recalling every story he has told her of his time under Ross’s command, every tale of hunger and fearful desperation. What she does not know is the part he held back – that the man she married very nearly turned beast, and that he might again given the right circumstances, one of the many terrible lessons he had learned during his year on Fury Beach. 

“I will be safe with Francis,” he says in partial reassurance, as he turns and begins to gather her into his arms, “for I tell you that Francis Crozier is no Sir John Ross, not even on the worst of days.”


	30. Jopson + "Rest"

“I don’t mind keeping watch over him for a while,” Dr. McDonald says, glancing at Thomas while he keeps a steady hand on the captain’s pulse, “for you look as though you could use the rest.”

Thomas stills, for he is thinking of the silence of the flat, how strange it was to hear nothing at all: no shouting, no sounds of children crying, not even the low cadenced hum of Mrs. Phipps coming from beside his mother’s bed. 

She had arrived late the night before and offered to stay, and how could he have refused, for he had barely had a hour’s rest the last two days. But then he had woken in the morning with the sensation that he had slept for far too long, and quickly stumbled to her room, finding Mrs. Phipps fast asleep in the chair and his mother on the bed, half-turned into a puddle of her own sick, her pale eyes motionless and glassy in the morning light. 

“Thank you kindly, sir,” he replies, as he takes a soft step towards the captain’s bunk, “but I will manage.”


	31. Collins + "Sleep"

It is a game they sometimes play, during Sir John’s Sunday service, where he and Billy Orren catch each other’s eye and do their best to remain completely expressionless: first one to smile loses. The winnings are kept trivial – an ounce of tobacco, a square or two of chocolate – or at least they were until three nights ago, when Billy found him on watch duty and in quiet tones requested an altogether different prize. 

Henry was taken aback at first – it seemed a strange thing for a man to ask of another man – but as he made his way down to the slop room, he found himself becoming fairly  _excited_  at the prospect. The act itself was no less of a revelation, as he accustomed himself to the soft prickling of stubble against his palms, to the firmness of lips that spurred him to yield to their advances. 

And now here they are on Sunday morning, pink-cheeked and unable to meet each other’s gaze, and Henry wonders if Billy has lost as much sleep as he these past three nights, and secretly hopes that he has. 


	32. Goodsir + "Blush"

They make swift progress over the course of the afternoon, learning their respective words for all the parts of the face and the head, as well as the upper limbs and extremities, and it is only when she points to the creased fold in the lap of his trousers that Harry stiffens, feeling the warmth of an unwelcome blush upon his cheeks. He had thought, perhaps, to skip over that part entirely, a temporary fiction that would have the body transition seamlessly from torso to leg, and he had not anticipated that she might think on her own to ask. 

He swallows tightly, his mind shuffling through fragments of Aristotle – all those references to semen and coition and nutriment – and the crude vulgarities so favored by his university schoolmates and finally to those few poems of Catullus that their Latin master let them look upon in private but would not allow them to fully translate. 

But then he glances back towards her, noting her wide and curious gaze, the way she looks at him without any sense of discomfort or prurience, and it shames him – a second time – for she is deserving of an answer, one he might offer her in the most thorough and scientific of terms. 

“The word is  _phallus_ ,” he begins, thinking to stay with the Latin terminology for the time being, “or what is commonly known as the male generative organ…”


	33. Little + "Exploration"

“We cannot stay much longer,” Jopson breathes against his ear, the warm proximity of his lips negating whatever impact the words themselves might have had. “We will be sore missed above if we do not return before the watch ends,” he then adds, and Edward can do nothing but mutter some rough assent, even as his mouth is fully occupied along the stubbled underside of the steward’s jaw. 

There is never enough time, he thinks, not for all the things he longs to do, the thorough exploration of the flesh he wishes to undertake – for while Jopson’s body is in some measure a mirror of his own, possessing the same recognizable parts, he delights in discovering all the small ways it differs, foreign and familiar in the same breath. 

Yet given the luxury of time, he could spend an hour in contemplation of a shoulder blade, an afternoon committing to memory each vein of the wrist, a fortnight determining the exact color of those pale, perceptive eyes. 

For now, though, much of that body remains a  _terra incognita_ , an unmapped land, and he aches for the day he will know it as intimately as he knows his own. 


	34. Le Vesconte + "Familiar"

The men from  _Terror_  have been spotted in the glass, somberly trudging the distance between the two ships, yet there is no sign of James: not in his cabin, which is deserted, nor on the deck above, where the coffin waits to be carried out onto the ice. 

Henry finds him, at last, standing wordlessly in the middle of Sir John’s cabin, his gaze flat and empty even as his eyes brim with unshed tears. It pains him, beyond all reason, to see James so, wracked by grief and loss; what he would give to restore his friend to that old, familiar bonhomie, to lighten his burden and return some color to the deathly pallor of his cheeks!

He comes closer, reaching a comforting hand to rest along the wide span of James’s collar, but then James turns to look at him and all at once his handsome face crumbles, his body falling forward into the space between them. And so Lieutenant Henry Le Vesconte takes his friend into his arms and lets him weep – and were he to take some pleasure in that warm and intimate embrace, no one save he and his Creator would ever know. 

**Author's Note:**

> My inbox is open — [feel free to send me a Terror character + one-word prompt](http://lafiametta.tumblr.com/ask)!


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